Castro District News

The School House Rock song “I’m Just A Bill” might make light out of how a bill becomes a law, but there is very little singing and dancing when it comes to the heavy subject matter of many bills that pass through the Senate.

Such was the case for the recent bill that would require condoms to be mandatory on the sets of porn sets. The bill was tabled just a few weeks back, but is still the subject of debate in the gay porn film industry.

Assembly Bill 1576, penned by Assemblyman Isadore Hall III from LA, stalled last month that would have required pornography filmmakers to “produce documentation showing condoms were used” on set, according to Bloomberg, in the instance that “a complaint was filed by the state.”

The idea behind the assembly bill is to fight against the spread of HIV, with heavy support from the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. AHF believes that porn models are at a higher risk of HIV exposure due to “sexual encounters with multiple partners” while on the job.

An understandable fear, given the health scare that took the lives of many porn models, both gay and straight, in previous decades.

Except that regular HIV testing and on-set condom availability are already regularities in the adult film industry. Therefore there have been many gay porn actors who have campaigned against bill 1576, stating that the government “doesn’t need to get involved.”

Local adult film star Jackson Miller spoke with My Castro about the matter, calling it “just another example of over-policing of sexuality.”

This is not the first time that the government has tried to intervene in the adult film industry in recent years. AB 640 progressed in 2013 when three porn stars tested positive for HIV within just a few weeks of each other. However, the bill was rested after the Senate closed and never made it to the governor, said the Bay Area Reporter last September.

Kink.com founder Peter Acworth told the B.A.R. last year while AB 640 was still moving: “There hasn’t been an on-set transmission of HIV since 2004, so it seems to me the testing approach works.”

After the tabling of AB 1576, Kink spokesman Michael Stabile told the B.A.R. that they have tried to work with Assemblyman Hall and AHF president Michael Weinstein to manufacture a bill that would make all sides happy. But Stabile said that they “seem to want a fight. This bill was opposed by LGBT groups, HIV outreach organizations, sex worker rights and the performers themselves.”

Miller echoed that sentiment when he spoke with My Castro. “I feel safer performing on set than I have off a porn set.” In the few instances that someone at work had tested positive for HIV, “that has come form outside of the set,” Miller explained.

My Castro will continue to keep a close eye on what happens to AB 1576, and if another bill like it follows. We can see that this battle for mandatory condom use on film sets is far from over.